


Trust Fall

by Drag0nst0rm



Category: The Queen's Thief - Megan Whalen Turner
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Ambiguous Miracles, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Pre-Canon, Spoilers for Book 6: Return of the Thief (Queen's Thief)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-01
Updated: 2021-01-01
Packaged: 2021-03-11 06:28:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,183
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28466811
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Drag0nst0rm/pseuds/Drag0nst0rm
Summary: There are ways to take care of thieves who overreach.This wasn't supposed to be one of them.
Relationships: Eugenides & Minister of War (Queen's Thief)
Comments: 12
Kudos: 56





	Trust Fall

They plotted to kill him at noon on a sunny day.

There was a certain logic to meeting then, Eugenides had to admit. Helen was out hunting today, so the Council could be assured of having their discussion uninterrupted, and midnight meetings always had a clandestine air about them; if he’d caught wind of a midnight meeting, he certainly would have found a way to spy on it. How could he not?

But a noon meeting, even an unexpected and quickly scheduled one, was inherently less interesting. If they’d sent a messenger after the queen, it would have implied urgency, and that might have piqued his interest, but they didn’t. Eugenides might not have known about it all, had he not been sitting beside his father at lunch when the message came.

His father’s lips had pursed, looking displeased, but not alarmed. Eugenides was very familiar with that expression being on his father’s face.

“Another message from Sounis?” he guessed quietly.

His father’s head tilted in a slight affirmative.

Sounis couldn’t have the Gift already if his father looked only mildly displeased. Just more bluster, he guessed, and he very nearly just turned back to his bread and the oil he’d been dipping it in.

But.

An idea had been slowly forming in his head. If he could get to Sounis – if he could learn what they knew about the Gift and get there first –

It was a good idea. And if he was going to carry it out, he needed to know as much as possible.

Which was what led to him perching on the heavy wooden rafters of the council chambers, hidden in the shadows of one corner, as he heard one of the barons read aloud that Sounis acknowledged their point: the Eddisians would never accept a foreigner’s right to their throne, even if he did have the gift.

Eugenides slouched slightly in his corner. It was good news, excellent news, but it also meant that his chance to prove himself had vanished.

Except the baron was still talking. Sounis claimed he had no intention of keeping the Gift for himself. He would, instead, offer it to one whom his sources had revealed had a competing claim to the throne: Eugenides.

For a moment, all was silent.

He almost wanted to laugh. Sources? What sources? He was the old king’s nephew, yes, but if that was Sounis’s argument, he’d be far better off offering the thing to the Minister of War, who had been the king’s brother and was a respected general besides, or to either of Gen’s older brothers. 

Not that he’d have any luck with them either, and, oh, Eugenides almost wanted to watch him try.

But the council of barons wasn’t laughing.

“Those old rumors,” his father said, and Eugenides had never heard him sound so weary. “Surely by now no one really thinks there’s any truth to them.”

The other barons looked at each other uneasily.

“Rumors are . . . persistent things,” the Minister of Information offered delicately. “And in this particular instance, the truth matters far less than what is perceived.”

Cold fury descended upon Eugenides as he processed the implications.

He would have to find an opportunity to steal something from the Minister of Information very soon. 

As an offering to his patron’s altar, of course.

“If he does offer it to your son, then what?” the Minister of Agriculture asks his father, all too pointedly.

His father’s hand twitched ever so slightly toward his sword.

“We all know your loyalty,” the Minister of Information hastened to say. “But if it is offered to him, and he holds it, even for a moment . . . it could mean a civil war.”

The barons had hesitated to accept a young girl as their queen, even when that girl was Helen. Given a chance to offer the throne to an illegitimate younger brother, some certainly would have taken it.

He could do the political math, but the insult to his mother’s honor, to his own, was almost too much to bear quietly.

“It’s a risk,” the Minister of Finance said heavily. “And we cannot afford a risk. Not now.”

All eyes were locked on his father.

And the Minister of War, ever so slightly, inclined his head in agreement.

An immense amount of tension bled out of the center of the room. All the men there remembered with what lengths the Minister had insisted on Helen’s right to be Eddis. He had spilled blood over it and would have spilled more if he had to.

Would spill blood again, Eugenides realized, frozen in his corner.

The man had two other sons, after all. Far less contentious ones than he. Ones about whom there were no rumors.

“The queen would not be pleased,” one of them said, and Eugenides barely heard.

“Nor would the priests,” another agreed grimly. “It will have to be quiet.”

_Quiet._

His grandfather had taught him all about how to be quiet.

But watching his fath- the Minister of War sit there, stone-faced, and occasionally incline his head in agreement –

Those lessons failed him now.

The pit of ice in his stomach grew spikes as it swelled, and he felt so very, very cold, shaking with the frozen desolation of it, until he shook too hard and –

Fell.

He caught himself, one-handed, on the rafter, but it was too late to go unseen. All eyes were on him, but he couldn’t make out their faces; just a blur of turned forms, so many of them armed.

He let himself fall the remaining few feet to the floor and fled.

He had played this as a game before, with his cousins. He had run through the halls as they tried in vain to catch him, their numbers swelling until it seemed half of Eddis was hot on his heels.

Sometimes it had truly been a game; other times they had been angry, at least to start.

But even the very worst of them, even Lader, hadn’t chased him with drawn swords.

He ran the halls, mind trying to twist and spin a plan, but it was failing him for the first time he could remember.

He could run for the great hall, find help –

But what if they thought it was a game? What if the ministers sheathed their swords, made assurances and quietly led him away before –

(What if they charged in, and his cousins only helped hold him down?)

He could avoid crowds, run through empty hallways, but he could not run forever. He needed out, he needed away, he needed –

Helen. Helen could save him, Helen could stop them, _the queen would not be happy –_

Helen would not.

But Helen was also Eddis, and Eddis could not risk a civil war and apparently could not trust him to avoid one.

He skidded around a corner but failed to look ahead. He topped into a startled laundress, and her basket went flying, tangling his feet.

He sprang up regardless, stumbling a few paces until he broke free, ignoring her yelps, but the delay was almost enough.

Sharp pain burst in his side and he looked down to see a knife.

It was hanging in his side. Dangling there. Like –

He didn’t cry out. He barely felt it. It seemed very distant; all he could feel was the ice that had moved up to strangling his airway.

He held the knife in and kept running.

His pursuer, whoever it was, tripped on the laundry too and went down hard, with a sickening thump. The laundress screamed, but he couldn’t afford to look back. Blind instinct drove him forward, and he turned the next corner, stumbling toward the stairs. Up one more flight, down one hall, left, right, three doors down – 

He didn’t dare try anything complicated, not now. His grandfather had trained him to work through pain, but not through a knife being stuck this deep in his abdomen.

Thieves die from falls, he thought blankly, and he grasped desperately at the too-smooth wall when he stumbled. Not knives. It wasn’t supposed to be knives.

He found the door he was looking for at last, and it swung open at his touch. He kicked it shut and made his way over to the bed.

He collapsed onto it before forcing himself to look down at the blood that had pooled into the hand he’d steadied the knife with.

It was a bad idea to pull it out, he knew. He needed Galen for this.

But he wasn’t going to get Galen, not now, and he didn’t want to die with that thing sticking out of him, so he tore it out and flung it at the wall with the last of his strength.

Then he waited, blood pooling out from him and onto his father’s bed.

He woke up when the door opened. He had not expected to.

Half-dried blood coated his shirt and the blankets, but the deep stab wound he remembered was gone; the blade had, apparently, severely grazed his side but done little more.

That . . . was not what he remembered, but it was what the evidence showed now, and he couldn’t argue with the proof carved out of his skin.

He regretted, now, his decision to come here to lay down and die. He should have gone to Helen’s room; he could have convinced her attendants to hide him until Eddis returned to give judgement. She would be fair.

He could almost be sure.

Instead, he was stuck here, wincing as he tried to kick away the blankets so he could stand and fight as the Minister of War opened the door.

The light had faded but was not yet quite gone; he could see quite clearly as the stone of the minster’s face turned to relief and then to horror.

“Gen,” he breathed.

Eugenides sprung for the knife.

He did not know what he intended to do with it, but at least he had it now.

The minister did not call for aid. Instead, he slid through the door, opening it as little as possible, and shut it firmly behind him. His eyes were locked on the blood dying Eugenides’ shirt. “How bad is it?” he demanded.

“Not quite lethal enough,” Eugenides said, and he hated, hated, hated that his voice dared to shake.

The minister reached for his sword and – unbuckled it. Flung it away onto the bed with an uncharacteristic lack of care and made no move toward either it or Eugenides.

He let the point of the knife fall, just a little.

“We need to get you out of here,” the Minister said, and Eugenides tried to hear the lie.

“You thought I would betray her,” he said, and the tremble in his voice at least had the decency to be from rage now.

“Never,” the minister said calmly, or at least with something mimicking calmness, “but they never would have believed it.”

“So, so, so,” he said in defeat and shoved the knife into his belt.

The older man, not being familiar with Attolian gutter slang, said, “So we get you out of here. I have funds here; I’ll send you with them to Sounis.”

His old plan came back to him. “Steal the Gift,” he said grimly. “Present it to her as her Thief, so there’s no more need for rumors.”

The older man’s eyes closed. “Yes.”

“I suppose I’ll need to sneak out,” he said, though he doubted it would be any particular challenge.

“There’s more chaos than usual right now. I imagine that will make things easier.”

“Hunting for me?” he asked viciously.

“For priests, at the moment. Three of your pursuers suffered from lethal falls. I’m not sure what happened to that last one.” 

Eugenides remembered the sickening thump from behind him as he fled.

(An older memory tugged at him. Lader, in the woods, his grandfather’s words echoing in his head about what can and cannot be done to a Thief without retribution, and then something pressing on his mind - )

“The last,” he repeated, and he noticed for the first time that his father’s boots were splashed with something dark.

His father looked at him wearily, the first two deaths still reflecting in his eyes.

He must have seen the acceptance in his son’s because he began to move, hastily gathering money, a sack, a cloak.

He insisted on wrapping the wound in Eugenides’ side before he would let his son disappear out the window.

“I’ll manage things here,” he said. “There won’t be trouble when you return.” He squeezed his son’s shoulder and met his eyes, the message very clear.

“I’ll get the Gift,” Eugenides promised, though he knew that wasn’t really what his father was asking of him right then.

It was more honest, though, than claiming he’d be safe, and his father was kind enough to let him pretend that was what had been meant all along.

He kept that other demand pressed close to his heart, however, as he slipped out the window and started down the long road ahead.


End file.
